Gang of Four (1988, Jacques Rivette)
Netflix says: “Art and life intertwine when four aspiring actresses study with a renowned film instructor in this acclaimed psychological drama directed by Jacques Rivette. Assigned to analyze the play Double Infidelities, the women - who also happen to be roommates - soon find themselves caught up in a web of suspense and scandal as the script spills over into their offstage lives.”
Only my seventh Jacques Rivette film, but here I am watching it going “oh that’s SO Rivette” as if I’m some expert or even someone who knows how to pay attention properly while watching a movie. Half (?) of this one takes place in Bulle Ogier’s theater, where the girls are practicing a play we never see performed, and I’m all “ooh, that’s just like in Out 1 and Paris Nous Appartient” but I’m not really paying attention to the text of the play, so whether the Netflix blurb is accurate I cannot say. Then we’ve got a secret conspiracy, the train rides from Secret Defense (done very differently here, brief and abstract, much better), a direct reference to La Belle Noiseuse, and Bulle Ogier and you’ve got Rivette 101.
The careful compositions and slow unveiling of story and character flow like a Rivette film, but otherwise I can’t say it was similar to his others that I’ve seen… the experience of watching them was very different. I guess it’d be the most like Secret Defense, if I had to compare.
Above: JR muse Bulle Ogier as a great actress turned acting instructor.
The titular four are Joyce, Anna, Claude and new roommate Lucia, who is replacing ex-roomie Cécile, who has started acting strange and disappearing a lot, caught up in her boyfriend’s criminal trial. In a mystical storm scene, Lucia finds some keys that Cécile has hidden in the apt., keys which could clear the boyfriend’s name while taking down someone powerful. Thomas is out to stop this at all costs, following each of the girls (mostly non-threateningly) and asking them questions, finally getting sometime-lesbian Claude to fall in love with him, gaining him access to the house so he can search for the keys. Cécile has also come back looking for the keys, and even Constance (Bulle Ogier) gets involved, getting arrested at the end for hiding Cécile’s boy after he escaped prison.
Some occasional Celine-and-Julie antics (see mock trial above). What movie has most in common with Out 1 is its split between the easily-summarized plot (above) and the theater scenes which add to the character of the movie but since I didn’t understand those scenes’ connection to the rest of the story, don’t come out much in my discussion.
Irene Jacob of “Red” and “Double Life of Veronique” had a small part, as one of the actors I think.
Above: the Four, left to right:
Lucia - Inês de Medeiros - in movies by João César Monteiro and Pedro Costa
Joyce - Bernadette Giraud - later in Secret Defense and Joan of Arc 1
Claude - Laurence Côte - in Up Down Fragile, Thieves and Godard’s Nouvelle Vague
Anna - Fejria Deliba - in an Olivier Assayas movie
And:
Cécile - Nathalie Richard - Up Down Fragile, 2 by Assayas, 2 by Haneke
“Thomas” - Benoît Régent - lead dude in “Blue”, died a month after “Red” opened
Constance - Bulle Ogier - of “Out 1″ and everything else